A History of Crows
by SwissFreakingCheese
Summary: A series of vignettes on the lives of Hannibal, Will, and Abigail. Murder Family AU.
1. A Man of Many Faces

**Full Summary: **_A collection of short stories on the lives of the Murder Family. Follows cannon up to the end of Trou Normand, then goes AU. Features established Hannigram and a surviving Abigail Hobbs as well as the occasional smattering of the rest of the BAU team._

_Fun fact- a group of crows is called a murder. Hence the name._

**Author's Note:** _Story rating is M for the following: language, sexual content (M/M) and the general violence that comes with Hannibal. This will update frequently like Green Finch and Linnet Bird does but it will not be on a scheduled day. _

_I don't profit by writing these characters but I'd love it if you'd review!_

* * *

Hannibal opened his eyes slowly.

Along the faint edges of his awareness, he had detected the sound of pots being taken from their cabinets in his kitchen. That, in and of itself, was cause for investigation because, between himself and his cohabitants, he was in the kitchen far more often than the others. Even when one of them _did_ enter the kitchen, they were rarely there without him.

On occasion, Will would attempt to sneak out of their room before Hannibal woke and try to make breakfast. The plan amused Hannibal to no end due to it's copious amounts of flaws. For one, the two slept in constant contact with one another; whatever limbs that were not overlapping ended up tangled in the white sheets. Not only that, but Will was not a very quiet person when it came to leaving the room, so the element of surprise was always lost. Sometimes, Hannibal would humor him and let him cook breakfast, but on most of those instances he'd hear the din coming from the kitchen, worry Will was causing either himself or the kitchen harm, and hurry downstairs to take over the operation. He was beginning to think that Will had actually managed to sneak past him this morning. He was beginning to, anyway, but then he recalled the weight on his torso.

Will's head was resting there, just beneath his breastbone, with an arm around Hannibal's belly, holding the doctor's midsection almost possessively.

As he came to be more aware, Hannibal picked up the sound of singing coming from downstairs, which confirmed his second guess. Abigail must be in the kitchen.

When Abigail had come under his official care about eighteen months ago, Hannibal had gone to a lot of effort in assuring she felt comfortable in her new environment...which had a lot to do with Alana's instance, really. He'd let her paint the guest room to her taste and she had a say in meal options for the week. It had taken a while for her to stop calling him Doctor Lecter and refer to him instead by his first name. That change brought them much closer, and Hannibal noted, as the weeks went by, that she was gradually adjusting to her home life with him...and then things were thrown into flux again when Will moved in nearly five months after Abigail had. She became distant, moody, sometimes even borderline irrational. Fearing the worst, Will had finally broken down and spoken to her.

_'"Am I driving you away?"he asked in a broken voice,sitting on the corner of Abigail's bed._

_Abigail raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you __**want **__to drive me away?"_

"_No," Will answered immediately, reaching out to touch Abigail's shoulder. He recoiled at the last moment, choosing instead to cover her hand with his own. "No. But do you think I am, Abigail?"_

_Abigail winced at the inquiry, and she didn't fully answer it. "I want to fix it."_

"_Fix what?"Will asked, tilting his head a bit in confusion. _

"_Nothing. Everything. I don't know."_

_Will sighed; despite the vagueness in her words, he was beginning to sense just what was bothering her so much, and he told her so. "This is about your dad, isn't it?"_

"_I don't need him," Abigail answered a little too quickly. "Doctor Lec- Hannibal,and you, you two are my legal guardians. I don't need my dad. I don't." She repeated that phrase several times, as if not only to convince Will of her honesty but to convince herself of it as well._

"_Maybe you don't need him," Will began, not at all convinced of that despite Abigail's adamant words. "But that doesn't mean you can't __**want**__ him."_

_Abigail gave a shaking, shuddering sigh, knowing that once again, her insightful new guardian had proved himself to be one of the most empathetic men she knew. Bested, she confessed, "Yeah, I do. But...I feel like somehow his presence is tainting this," she pointed at herself, then at Will, and then back at herself. "Whatever it is we are."_

"_Is that because you're still hurting? Or because I'm the one who took his life?" _

_Abigail jerked a nod and Will took that to mean both were the case._

"_It's just that...Loss is something I know. I've lost my mom's parents, and then her, I've had pets.." she sniffled, lowering her watering eyes, speaking in between shaky gasps she emitted in attempt to keep from crying. "But with Dad, he...he left a void and...and you caused it. And now you are trying to fill it again and...and I just...I want to fix what's wrong with us but I don't know what...what it is."_

"_Do you blame me?" Will asked, his voice low and ridden with agony. _

"_I don't know, Will."_

"_You don't?"_

_Abigail whisked away her tears, trying to forget the hurt in his voice. "You saved my life. You...you took Dad's to do it but...you saved my life, Will. I...I know I'm not being fair..."_

"_But you __**are**__ being honest," Will soothed, smoothing Abigail's hair._

"_That's all I asked for."_

Letting Will try and cook was one thing. Abigail was another. He very much doubted she'd woken up at six-thirty in the morning and made food just because she wanted to; she would normally ask Hannibal to do it for her, or if he wasn't readily available, she'd make toast. More than a little suspicious of her intent, as well as wary as to the current state of his kitchen, Hannibal decided to investigate the matter. The first order of that business, though, was getting out of bed, and that meant moving Will. Hannibal wriggled his body to the side of the bed, hoping to shake his lover off of him gently, but the younger man's hold on him made it so Hannibal ended up dragging Will with him. Slowly, Hannibal rolled his arm out and up. Taking him by the wrist, he guided Will's arm off his torso, to which Will groaned in protest.

"Go back to sleep," Hannibal whispered, tucking a pillow where his upper body had just been before rising to his feet. Pulling his navy robe over his shoulders, Hannibal tugged the girdle into a knot and made his way downstairs.

Abigail Hobbs had picked up a bit of the culinary talent she had grown to be used to over the months. Of course, she didn't know any recipes by heart like Hannibal did, but she had learned tips and tricks into making simple foods she'd enjoyed before moving in with him. She had two frying pans on the stove-top; one of them contained an egg yolk, the other, pieces of cut up sausage. Abigail flipped the eggs over several times and was just about to fold the meat in to them when a voice from the doorway hit her back.

"Good morning, Abigail."

Startled, Abigail nearly dropped the spatula she carried as she jumped in surprise. "Morning," she greeted before attempting to return to her cooking.

"You know," Hannibal told her, striding up to her side, "there's a better way of doing it than that."

Snatching the spatula from her hand, Hannibal used the edge of it to chop the sausage into the smallest pieces he could manage. It rather startled Abigail how fast he turned mouthful-sized morsels of meat into tiny bits of chopped sausage. The renowned psychiatrist then scooped the small pile of meat, placed in the center of the egg, and folded the cooked yolk over it. Abigail watched him work, noting the concentration in his eyes. She still recalled a comment Will had made about the look...unfortunately. Abigail had spent a long time trying to erase _that_ from her memory.

"So," Hannibal began once the two of them were seated opposite each other, Abigail with a fresh plate of the dish she'd been making, this one made by Hannibal, "is there any particular reason you felt compelled to wake so early in the morning to make eggs?"

"No," Abigail responded. Her reply was much too quick, and they both knew it.

Hannibal sighed, "You've never been the best liar," he informed her curtly, "What is it on your mind, Abigail?"

Defeated, Abigail dropped her fork and huffed. "There...there's something I want to talk to you about, actually."

"I assimilated as much," Hannibal remarked dryly, taking a sip of his drink.

"Hannibal!" laughed Abigail, sprinkling a bit of pepper on her meal, "I'm being serious!"

He set down his glass and looked at her intently. Abigail knew he did, but she didn't return the gesture...she couldn't. But she _did_ need to say what was on her mind, difficult as it was. It'd been on the back-burner of her conscious now for several weeks; the topic had also been the subject of an entire ninety-minute session with Alana Bloom. Abigail had prepared an entire speech for what she was going to say, but with Will not present as she'd hoped and Hannibal asking her directly what on her mind, Abigail finally blurted,

"Hannibal, I want to call you Dad."

He nearly choked on his breakfast.

"What?"

Abigail blinked rapidly, and after steeling herself, repeated her words. "I've lived with you and Will coming up on a year and a half. You guys feed and clothe and shelter me. We play games together. You and I tease Will behind his back, Will and I tease you behind yours,"

Hannibal chuckled at this remark. "Do you now?"

Abigail smiled. "Yeah, we do...And you two are my legal guardians on top of all of that so...I was thinking maybe I could start calling you Dad."

"Both of us?" asked Hannibal tentatively.

"Yes."

Hannibal clasped his hands and rested his chin on them. "Abigail," he began, "Will spoke to me a few months ago about your father. How you miss him."

"This isn't about-"

"Abigail," Hannibal interrupted. "Your father is a man no one, not me, not Will, _no one_, can replace. Do you understand that?"

Abigail sighed. "Yeah, I do. Doctor Bloom and I discussed that for a while."

"You've been over this with Alana?"

"I told her not to tell Will about it at work," Abigail explained hurriedly.

"Right."

A long silenced passed between the two of them, and then Hannibal said,

"Have you though about how this might affect Will, Abigail?"

Abigail cocked her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Well," he replied, cutting himself a bite of egg, "after the incident that surrounded our meeting, Will had trouble, for the longest time, about how he felt about your father's death. He started to see him in places he was not. At one point he even started to _feel_ like him."

Abigail gave a dejected frown, to which Hannibal replied by reaching across the table and putting his hand on hers.

"It would mean the world to him, Abigail," he told her sincerely, "but I must advise you to not use the word Dad in reference to him. For his sake, and by correlation, for ours.'

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Do you think...do you think he'd be alright if I called him Papa?"

Hannibal was impressed with that particular bit of insight. He hadn't even considered an alternate form of the word, a compromise.

He nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, I think he'd like that very much."  
Abigail bobbed her head gleefully, joyful at having reached at least one conclusion that morning. "And you?" she asked, "What about you?"

Now it was Hannibal's turn to abandon Abigail's eyes. He squeezed her petite hand in his large one, gazing intently on the coffee for a moment before flicking a fleeting glace at her. There was a hope in her icy blue eyes, an electricity he hadn't seen there before.

"I have been called many names, you know," he remarked, "Hannibal Lecter is my name, certainly, but there's Doctor Lecter, there's Hannibal, and there are those I have reserved for your Papa. For Will."

Abigail nodded slowly, not fully grasping what he was getting at.

"Every name's got a face," Hannibal continued, "and as I am 'Doctor Lecter' to my patients and colleagues, so I am 'Hannibal' to those who consider me a friend, and so I am 'dear' to the man I love."

"Right?"

"No one has ever called me by the one you are proposing, Abigail."

She looked away. "Never mind, Hannibal...it was silly."

"Not silly," Hannibal corrected her immediately. "_New_ is more like it."

When Hannibal was finally able to hold her eyes with his own again, Abigail made her own discovery in those dark irises. He was humbled. Hannibal drew in a breath, preparing himself for what he knew needed to be said.

"When you were in the hospital, Will and I felt obligated to help you pick up the pieces. More so than you can fathom. We discovered, with the help of our dear friend Alana of course, that not all those pieces had survived the fall. And so we swore to make it up to you, to give you what your father could not."

Abigail smiled at the sentiment, only to discover that Hannibal wasn't done.

"There is no word more reverent than father, you know. God Himself asked man to address Him as such. It is a word that implies protection, guidance, love."

"My dad tried to give me those things," Abigail began, her voice rising as a lump of tears started to develop in her throat, "but..."

"Sssh," Hannibal returned soothingly, stroking the back of her hand with one of his thumbs, "I know."

After Abigail regained her composure-and apologized for losing it in the first place-Hannibal went on.

"It is how a man feels about his offspring," he told her, and then he added,

"And how Will and I feel about you."

Abigail beamed at him, eyes shining with a fresh batch of tears brought about by an entirely different set of emotions.

"Are you saying yes?" she asked him earnestly.

And though he was a man rarely moved, a gleam appeared in his own auburn gaze. Hannibal patted Abigail's hand, an odd sensation like liquid warmth filling his chest as he opened his mouth to reply to her inquiry.

"Yes, I'm saying yes."

Hannibal rose to his feet and was in the process of placing the dirty dishes in the sink when a pair of slight arms wrapped around his body. His cleaning instantly forgotten, Hannibal embraced Abigail tightly, wrapping one arm around her mid-back and placing his free hand on her head, the crown of which was the current resting point of his chin.

"Dad," she whispered tearfully into his robe, trying to imprint the difference in her mind. "Dad, Dad, Dad..."

Hannibal held her closer to his form. "Promise me something, Abigail."

"Hmm?"  
Hannibal looked at her eyes as best as he could muster given the circumstance. "I get to call you Abby, if you're calling me Dad."

He felt her smile.

"I've just been waiting for you to start without my consent if we're being honest with one another," she replied with a light laugh.

An hour later, Will came down the stairs, wiping fresh sleep from his eyes, to find Abigail and Hannibal chatting at the table about what he assumed based on the tidbits he overheard to be about tea.

"What're you two doing up so early?" Will asked, crossing the room. He placed a hand on the back of Hannibal's chair and dropped a swift kiss to the top of his head.

"Abigail made us breakfast," Hannibal replied.

She rolled her eyes. "You did like half the work, and you know it."

Rising to her feet, Abigail wrapped her arms around Will. Pleasantly surprised at the gesture, he hugged her gently, letting her rest her forehead on his collarbone as she liked to do.

"Everything okay, Abigail?" Will asked her when several moments passed with no sign of Abigail releasing him.

"Yes," Abigail responded instantly,

"It's been a wonderful morning, Papa."


	2. The Other Side of Puppy Love

_In which Will reads Marley and Me, and Hannibal never hears the end of it._

* * *

Will had read the book.

It had started with a simple gesture from Beverly Katz. She had purchased a copy of _Marley and Me _for Will shortly after she'd finished reading it.

"It's a great summer read!" She enthused over lunch one warm afternoon in early August. "Alana recommended it to me."

The woman in question gave a small bob of her head in affirmation. "It was really touching," she said, "and, if if I might add, wonderful for dog lovers, too."

Will took the hardback book from Beverly, running his fingertips over the cover, which depicted a labrador puppy. He chuckled over the general cuteness of the small dog, and then he looked up at the women with mild concern and asked,

"Is this the sort of book that is going to make me want to get another dog?"

"Most definitely," Alana informed him immediately. "And I would have, but I've enough dogs at home."

"You have _two_," Beverly remarked dryly. "That's not too many. And the only reason you and I even _have_ dogs is because of Will, anyway."

It was true. Upon his moving in with Hannibal a year and a half ago, Will had encountered a bit of an issue regarding his penchant for stray collecting. Hannibal, despite not having any actual allergies to dogs, had never been particularly fond of them. He actually harbored a bit of resentment towards the canine population due to negative childhood experiences with them. And so Hannibal decided that, since Will was the one moving, that he would be the one making rules; as such, Hannibal's first rule was that Will's dogs were not to come with him. This was, of course, met with a great deal of protesting, not just on Will's part but on Abigail and Alana's too. ("I love dogs, I've always always wanted one" and "Will needs some of the remnants of his old life to accompany him to his new one or the change may prove too overwhelming" had been their respective arguments) Eventually, with a great deal of pleading from all three parties, Hannibal was convinced to let Will keep three of his dogs. The other four were to go to new homes. The prospect of selecting three of his dogs to keep and relocating the other four was daunting, until Alana once again came to his rescue. She and Beverly agreed to each take in two of the dogs; this took much less convincing because Beverly had been looking to adopt a puppy anyway. Will, Alana and Beverly put the names of all seven of his dogs into a jar with folded up paper slips and drew one at a time for dogs. The second dog drawn (a Cockapoo named Jeeter) and the fifth dog drawn (a Chihuahua/Boston Terrier mix named Bruce) went to Alana. The third dog drawn (an Australian Cattle Dog named Cora) and the sixth dog drawn (a Beagle/Terrier mix named Daisy) went to Beverly. This left Will with his Finnish Spitz (Winston), his Australian Sheepdog (Sadie), and his American Pit Bull (Charlie). Although it had been hard for Will to part with Jeeter, Bruce, Cora, and Daisy, he was extremely grateful to have his other dogs around.

"Two dogs is plenty," Alana responded. "If I'd only ended up with one of Will's dogs I might have gotten another after _Marley and Me_."

Beverley nodded her agreement. "I may have, too."

"Sorry," Will apologized sheepishly.

"No, it's okay!" Beverly amended swiftly. "_Thank_ you. Having two dogs already kept me grounded."

"That, and the the fantasy of another one was destroyed soon after it developed when Bruce brought a rat in the house," Alana added, widening her eyes to mimic the horror she felt at the time of the incident.

Will chuckled. "Yeah, he does that."

"Oh, do tell."

Will brought the book home that evening, plopped down enthusiastically in bed, and began to read it.

Hannibal remembered Will bringing the book home with mild chagrin because that had not been a positive week for him. Every single night, Will would want nothing other than to read the book. Hannibal would lay beside Will, shirt removed to display the bare expanse of his torso, exposing the peaks and valleys of his skin...and Will would read. Hannibal would run his fingers through the curly locks that adorned his lover's curly head, massaging his scalp the way Hannibal knew he adored...and Will would read. Hannibal would lay his palm over the curve of Will's hip with clear intentions...and Will would read. Hannibal would share passionate kisses with him right before bed, kissing up and down the younger man's neck and beneath his jawbone the way Hannibal knew drove Will crazy. And still, in spite of all that...

Will would read.

As if that weren't enough, he was also extremely vocal in his reading of the book. For six nights, Will kept Hannibal awake, giggling over the dog's antics. Every single time he would find anything amusing in the book (which was usually every couple of minutes), he would stop reading and eagerly tell Hannibal all about it; the cycle continued over and over for almost two hours because every time Will finished telling Hannibal about a passage from the book, he would go back to reading again.

The seventh night proved to be much different. Instead of reporting happy little tidbits about the book, Will would give out pained gasps and whines before telling Hannibal a different kind of story. The dog was deteriorating. Hannibal started to block out what Will was saying in an attempt to get some rest, but apparently the book told in detail about the death of the dog that Will had come to love so very much.

Will cried like a toddler who had lost its mother in the store. He lamented to no one in particular about the ending of the book...and then buried his face in Hannibal's chest and cried some more.

Hannibal stroked Will's back. "Sssh," he breathed soothingly.

Will gripped the man's sides, nuzzling into the fabric of Hannibal's pajamas. The scent of them was calming; a mix of the laundry detergent that they used and the unique scent of Hannibal's skin. What brought him greater solace, however, was the sound.

Every night before they went to sleep, sex or no sex, Will would lay his head on Hannibal's chest and throw an arm around his body. From the positioning of his skull, he could always hear the sound of the older man's heartbeat, and the sound combined with the gentle rubbing on his back was eventually enough to soothe him a bit.

"My pillow must be lonely," Will muttered thickly. "I rarely ever use the thing."

Hannibal flicked his gaze down to the head on his body. "Only when I'm gone?"

"Only when you're gone," Will echoed, and then, "Must drive you crazy, me laying in the same place every single night like I belong there."

Under normal circumstances Hannibal would have said something mildly teasing to Will or just chuckled in response to the comment. But given Will's state of mind (and Hannibal's desire to mollify the man so that he can get some rest), he returned sleepily,

"You do."

Within a few moments Will was finally subdued into sleep. Hannibal hadn't minded this final night of book reading quite as much as the others, but he still had to shrug Will off of him to put a new shirt on.

A few weeks later, Will came bustling into the kitchen after work with a grin on his face.

"Hannibal! I found a movie for us to watch tonight!" he announced proudly.

Hannibal did not look up from the food he was making. "Good evening, Will."

Will knitted his brow, temporarily distracted by Hannibal's handiwork. Peering at the bowl, he asked, "What're you cooking?"

"Cassoulet," was the reply. "It's a soup dish made with white beans, counnes, pig skin, and pork sausage."

"Hmm. Sounds good," Will returned. "Where's Abigail?"

"Spending the night over at Wendy Toffelmeier's home. You remember her, don't you? She was over for dinner two weeks ago."

Will nodded.

Hannibal set the whisk he was using to meet Will's eyes. "You said you brought a movie home?"

Will beamed, whipping out the case. "Yeah, I did!"

Hannibal took one look at the cover and groaned. "Will, no."  
Will plunked his fists down on his hips. "Whatever happened to not judging a book by it's cover?"

Hannibal returned to his stirring. "There are two things wrong with your argument," he said. "One, that is not a book, it is DVD case. Second, I am judging it by it's cover because the cover reads '_Marley and Me'_."

"What's your issue with _'Marley and Me_'?"

"My _issue_," Hannibal returned, "is the fact that you were so beside yourself with grief when you finished the book that I had to change nightshirts after you'd finished weeping."

Offended, Will asked, "And that bothered you?"

"Will," began the doctor, "you know full well that I'll listen to you whether we are having an intelligent conversation...or you are just making noises. And frankly," he added, looking up from his cooking with a suggestive smirk on his lips,

"I prefer the noises."

Will reddened a bit. "...You were saying?"

"My point is, I'm worried about you, Will," concluded the man. "I don't want you to become even more upset after seeing the book that rattled you so much play out on television."

Will pursed his lips thoughtfully before a smile took them up once more. "Why don't you watch it with me?"

Hannibal fought the urge to scoff.

"Why?"

"Well," Will reasoned, "I want to watch it but you think it will be emotionally harmful."

"Yes, we have established that, Will."

Will rolled his eyes. "But if we watch it together, maybe it'll go a little better."

Hannibal heaved a sigh. As terrible of an idea as he thought the viewing was, and as unwilling as he was to see the movie after having been told in lengthy and vivid detail about the book, he found himself agreeing.

"Alright," he huffed. "Dinner first, then we'll watch together."

Will raced through the meal, hardly noting the taste of it at all. He shoveled it into his mouth as quickly as he could, in a very evident hurry to start watching the movie. He noted, to his annoyance, that Hannibal did not share his enthusiasm. In fact, the doctor seemed to be eating slower than usual.

"William," Hannibal admonished mildly, raising his glass to his lips, "it is not a contest. Do eat slower."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Oh, am I _William_ now?"

"You're William when you're in trouble."

Will took a bit of the soup in his spoon. "Is this better?" he asked, raising the tiny mouthful to his lips with extreme slowness.

Hannibal found himself biting back the urge to both laugh and roll his eyes. He did neither; instead he said,

"Finish your cassoulet, dear."

After a while, Will was finally settled down on the couch, with the film on the screen. Hannibal was propped up against the armrest of the couch and Will lay with his head resting against his lover's belly, absently thumbing the fabric of Hannibal's shirt.

"Look!" Will exclaimed, "It's baby Marley!"

And so it began.

The viewing experience was essentially a more involved version of the reading one for Doctor Lecter. Will discussed every single one of the dog's actions with him and pointed out times when his own dogs had done the same...

Jeeter humped other dogs a lot.

Cora was always eating jewelry.

When first adopted, Winston cried all night.

Charlie ran around with his food dish in his mouth.

Daisy was terrified of water.

Sadie was a serious jumper.

Bruce ate everything he could get his mouth on.

And all of Will's dogs loved snow.

To make matters worse, Will would actually pause the movie to tell Hannibal little anecdotes about his dogs and how they were similar and different to Marley.

Hannibal passed time by attempting to psychoanalyze the film characters. He concluded that Grogan's boss was a recovering sex addict with a desire for money which stemmed from a belief that riches could win him his wife back within a minute of meeting the character. He drew conclusions about the sorts of lives the children might lead in their eventual adulthoods based on their behaviorisms as toddlers. He was so caught up in this that he barely noticed the dog beginning to slip away until Will scooted up against his body a little further and gripped Hannibal's shirttails tightly. Will knew what was coming, and he could hardly bear to witness it. Tears swarmed his gaze even as he tried to convince them not to fall.  
When Marley's eyes fell shut for the final time, the battle to not cry over the ending was lost. Will's body shook with his tears. Despite the late night readings, despite the annoyance, despite having been right about how poor of an idea this was...Hannibal held Will's body snugly against his own. He folded his arms over Will's form, comforting him over Marley's death for the second time in a month.

"Will," Hannibal whispered, peppering a few soft kisses to the raven-colored tendrils atop the younger man's head. "The dogs—our dogs, are fine."

Will nuzzled against Hannibal's chest, his lover's insightfulness proving once again to be truly keen. This wasn't just about Marley; it was about his own dogs as well.  
Will had very little idea how long he sat there, tears bleeding into Hannibal's pleated vest. Winston, Charlie, and Sadie were heavy on his heart as he did. All life ended in death, but being faced with the mortality of three animals that he loved so dearly was crippling. Will turned his head to the side and he listened, once again, for the gentle cadence of Hannibal's heartbeat, the familiar lub-dub a soothing melody.

When at last he was able to calm down, he tilted his head up to look at Hannibal, who seemed to have been anticipating the move because his eyes fell instantly upon Will's. He dropped a swift kiss to Will's forehead before saying,  
"Let's go take the dogs for a walk."  
Will cocked an eyebrow. "Let's...what?"  
"Let's go take Winston, Charlie and Sadie for a walk," Hannibal repeated.  
"No, I got that, I just...it's almost midnight."  
Hannibal shrugged. "It's never too late for quality time with family, Will," he remarked, "and right now that's clearly what you need.  
And so they walked.

The pavement was bathed in the light of the moon, making the breath of both the men and the canines visible, like steamy wreaths in the winter sky. Snow crunched beneath their feet, leaving meandering little footprints along the frosty earth. They strode along in a silence that was comfortable, content in the chilled night.

"Thanks for today," Will finally said, voice shaky from both the cold and the tears he'd shed earlier.

"Are you referring to the film or to the comfort afterwords?"

"The dinner, too. All of it."

Hannibal bobbed his head in acknowledgment. "It's all in the line of duty, Will. It comes with the territory of caring for someone."

Will reached out to grip Hannibal's hand. "Thank you all the same."

A minute or so passed before Hannibal spoke again.

"You have to admit that the idea of watching the movie was pretty poor."

Will shrugged. "I suppose it was."

"Only suppose?"

"Yeah," sighed Will, breath puffing up in the air as he exhaled. "I talked about the book with Alana and Beverly while I was reading it. I knew that the end would...be hard for me. But I was strangely unprepared for just how hard it would be."

Hannibal adjusted his grip on Winston's leash. "Because of the mortality of your own dogs?"

Will nodded.

"You can only love them while they are here, Will," Hannibal said. "Care for them while they are here in this life. It's all you can do."

When they lay in bed together an hour or so afterwords, Will asked from his position on Hannibal's chest,

"Do you think we could get another dog?"

Hannibal lifted Will up off his chest. Laying the man on his back, he leaned down to plant a long, deep, cassoulet-flavored kiss before he answered,

"Absolutely not."

Will chuckled, raising up his torso to capture Hannibal's lips with his own again.

"Worth a shot."


End file.
